Since its inception in 2013, Aye Finance has been working towards transforming the MSME landscape in India. We support MSMEs in shouldering such a massive responsibility by easing their access to adequate business financing.
As we delved deeper into this sector, we realized that harnessing the capabilities of micro-enterprises and helping them build their skills can give way to many more job opportunities. This way, we can also strive to solve the job opportunity gap that India is facing currently!
In April 2019, FAME was launched to overcome challenges beyond financing for micro-enterprises and to support them in bridging the gap between their aspirations and opportunities. FAME acts as a social mission to make such micro-enterprises not only more capable to boost their business operations but also being able to support other working professionals.
FAME’s Mission
At FAME, our team is focused on building the capabilities of the unorganized micro-businesses to scale up and become competitive. This is achieved through non-financial support in the areas of:
- Market Development
- Production
- Enhancing Business & Financial Management Skills
Even during the Covid-19 pandemic, our FAME team was focused on its mission and fought this battle alongside its members. The team ensured they survived this challenging situation with minimum damage to their business.
Brij Mohan, Chairman, FAME, is certain that our team will accomplish their goals irrespective of the pandemic – “While the pandemic will continue to pose challenges, I believe there are a large number of opportunities available to continue to deliver on our objectives.”
FAME’s Methodology
To build competitiveness in micro-businesses, broad generic interventions have had limited success historically. Our team at FAME realized that they need customized interventions for specific business industries. This is why our team uses a filter of business industry to build and plan their programs.
The FAME Approach
The overall approach at FAME looks at going deep into specific clusters – understanding how they operate, what are the gaps in their business as well as product propositions, and then designing suitable programs to address these gaps.
The FAME approach relies on the following deliberate steps to ensure the success of their programs:
- Identify Business Industry – Our FAME team uses secondary research as well as primary research done by Aye and other knowledge leaders in the space. This helps them to identify a business cluster that can respond well to their interventions and where the scale of impact created would be large.
- Field Study of the Business Industry – Our FAME team then visits the micro-businesses in the identified geographies. They collect primary information such as what challenges are present on the field and what institutions/infrastructure they can leverage in their programs.
- Design the Interventions – A planned approach typically covering a 2-3 year deployment is outlined and key measures of success are defined at a high level. This guides the rollout of the program.
- Detailed Field Deployment Plan – All aspects of the deployment of the program are worked out – spanning from hiring, training, building customized training content for the industry, field meetings with support groups, and logistics for the program rollout.
- Monitor and Improve – The progress of the program is measured periodically against the measure of success and milestones that were expected in FAME’s program plans.
- Measure Impact and Document the Learnings – Our FAME team intends to measure the impact of their interventions after 2-3 years so that they may continually improve on the effectiveness of their interventions.
Till 2021, FAME has already impacted more than 15000 lives in 4 clusters and 100 villages by providing more than 30000 man-hours of training and treating more than 15000 livestock.
Through FAME, Aye will continue to launch various projects for supporting the micro-enterprises through non-financial aid and assistance. We hope to not only assist them on the professional front but also provide the required motivation for their progression into the country’s new and advanced era.
